Edging is a task that requires a great deal of time and labor to give a landscaped area a professional “finished” look. Commercial and industrial maintenance organizations are constantly trying to find ways to reduce the amount of time and labor involved in “finishing” an edge along a pathway or border.
The accepted way of edging is currently done using a stick edger, a string edger, or a small motorized edger and requires a tremendous amount of labor and time. Handheld edgers are slow, labor intensive and can be extremely dangerous to pedestrians due to the edger throwing objects during operation. Therefore, users with a large area to edge are looking for a more efficient, safer, and less time consuming way to edge. Some examples of large areas to edge include colleges, hospitals, large apartment complexes, condominiums, and road-sides.
Early attempts at utilizing an edger on a vehicle were unsuccessful. For instance, in one attempt, an edger was installed between the rear wheel and the two front drive wheels of a mower. This design had an issue picking up the rear wheel and not allowing enough weight to be transferred to the cutting disc.
In another example, a company, after discussing possible edger designs with the inventor, attached an edger to the side of a mowing deck and used a linear actuator (which is basically a mechanical screw) for down pressure. The available weight off of the side of this deck was only about 175 pounds. This design also was not effective.
US Patent Application Publication No. US 2009/0260841 describes an edger that is attached to the bed of a trickster type vehicle.
This background information is provided to reveal information believed by the applicant to be of possible relevance to the present invention. No admission is necessarily intended, nor should be construed, that any of the preceding information constitutes prior art against the present invention.